Naruto: Art of the Sword!
by xNamikazeKyuubix
Summary: Trapped in a virtual world, created by a madman with a god complex, filled with monsters and with only his blade by his side. One blond-haired teen must gather companions to his side in his quest to complete a life-and-death game, all hundred floors of it! Along the way he will experience the journey of a lifetime, among many other things! Iaijutsu!Naruto! Possible Naruto x Harem!


**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Sword Art Online.**

**Well recently I've been really busy catching up with all the new anime that are being released this season, as well as some older ones that were released a while back. One of them is obviously the newest instalment in the SAO sage known as Gun Gale Online, which has reignited my hype for the Sword Art Online universe. Of which I had actually meant to write a crossover fanfiction for but never actually got around to doing it, so now here I am!**

**I have no excuse as to why I don't finish my other stories, my muse is really fickle like that. One moment it creates this awesome idea then a few days later and it just chooses to skip out on me, it really irritates me as well. Well without further ado, let me stop bothering you with problems that you can't solve.**

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Chapter 1: Sword Art Online

'Finally the time has come for the actual release of the game!'

This sentiment was shared by numerous gamers throughout the entirety of Japan, for they were excited for the official launch of the first ever Virtual Reality system known as the Nerve Gear with the launch title Sword Art Online. For the majority of the people, it would be their first time experiencing the Virtual Reality system known as a Full-Dive. However for a select thousand players, all of whom had been lucky enough to be selected to Beta-Test the game, they would have an advantage over the rest.

One of whom had just recently purchased his copy of Sword Art Online and in his rush to play the game, kicked open the front door to his house and sprinted up to his room.

"I'll be in my room! Do not disturb!" The male teenager hollered over his shoulder as he disappeared into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Uzumaki Naruto! How many times have I told you not to slam the doors?!" An enraged female voice shouted from the kitchen.

"Calm down Kaa-chan, you know how excited Onii-chan has been for this game to release. Plus he also kept his promise of getting straight-As for his recent school examinations." A softer feminine voice said, trying to calm down the visibly steaming red-haired woman beside her.

Uzumaki Kushina, a red-haired woman in her mid-thirties with the looks of someone who had barely reached their mid-twenties. Single mother of two children, a sixteen year old son and a fifteen year old daughter. She had married early due to her boyfriend, at the time, knocking her up by accident. Thus the two had been married off to each other, pressured by both sides of the family. Unfortunately a year after the birth of their daughter, he had been killed when the plane he had been on crashed due to a turbine failure.

Uzumaki Kotori had definitely taken after her mother in terms of looks, with equally red hair which was held up in two long ponytails by a pair of black ribbons. She was usually a sweet girl around her mother and friends, yet she makes an extra effort whenever her brother was around. Multiple people have made comments on this, triggering her 'devil-mode' and she would suddenly gain an insane amount of strength to pound the person into the ground.

Up in his room, Uzumaki Naruto sat on his bed as he quickly made short work of the clear wrapping surrounding the game casing. He was a lean teenager with unruly blond-hair that spiked in every direction, falling over his eyes in a series of spiky bangs. His eyes were a clear shade of blue, like that of the sky, and his mouth was stretched wide in an excited grin. The only male of the family had without a doubt taken after his deceased father, only with a more tanned complexion and rougher facial features.

His tanned complexion coming from the numerous hours spent under the sun as he was the team captain for the swimming club in his school, he claimed that he felt at ease in the water and swimming came to him naturally. Combined with his roguish-looks and friendly disposition, it was no wonder that he was on the potential boyfriend list of almost every female student. Something that irked his younger sister to a great extent.

"Alright! Finally my very own copy of Sword Art Online!" Naruto exclaimed in joy, holding his recently purchased game out in front of him. 'Not that the Beta wasn't good but I'd rather see the full potential of the Full-Dive system!'

After sending a quick text to his sister, notifying that he would be using his Nerve-Gear for the next few hours, the blond-haired teen hooked up his system and loaded in the game. Laying down on his bed, he gently lowered the helmet over his head and made sure that it snugly fit into place. Remembering the voice activation phrase for the system, he cleared his throat in a dramatic fashion.

"Link Start!"

His vision was suddenly assaulted with streaks of different colours, forming a sort of tunnel that his consciousness travelled through until a soothing white screen filled the entirety of his vision. Small precise black words started appearing on the white canvas before him, accompanied by a monotonous female voice that narrated it aloud in perfect Japanese.

Welcome to Sword Art Online. Would you like to proceed?

Two options appeared before him in blue-outlined boxes, he raised his hand and tapped the kanji for Yes.

There exists saved Data from Beta-Testing stage, would you like to proceed with the usage of this data?

Again the two option boxes appeared, this time it took him a while to decide.

'Should I use my saved data from the Beta phase? Seems like cheating as I would get a head-start against the newer players… however the other Beta-Testers obviously wouldn't even bat an eye to use every advantage given to them…'

Deciding on his choice, he selected the Yes option once again.

Welcome back player Kurama.

Naruto had to admit that seeing his body disintegrate into blue particles without feeling it was slightly discomforting, even though he knew that it was merely the game reconstructing his body in the form of his virtual avatar and transferring him to the starting area. A few seconds later and his body reformed in a flash of bright blue light, revealing his avatar known as Kurama.

The avatar he had chosen to represent him did not defer to greatly in terms of body size, the major difference was that Kurama had dark-red hair that fell around his visage in a messy mop. The avatar had crimson eyes and distinctive whisker-like facial markings along his cheeks. His clothing consisted of basic beginner clothes, a simple burnt-orange tank-top along with a pair of black pants that tapered off near the bottom. Attached to his waist was a simple sheathed katana, since it was the style of combat that he had chosen during the Beta phase.

Stretching to work out the imaginary kinks in his virtual joints, Naruto surveyed his surroundings and immediately recognised the setting that he had spawned in. The starting area, also known as the Town of Beginnings was the town situated in the first level of Aincrad. It was the town in which every player spawned when they have just started the game, it was designed to help new players acclimatise to the game.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed happily and raised his hands skywards with a wide grin on his face.

"It's good to be back!"

"You could say that again whiskers."

Jumping slightly from the unexpected yet familiar voice, the red-haired avatar turned around to see a familiar sight. The person that addressed him was obviously female by the voice, she had on a dark hooded-cloak that obscured most of her features. The only thing visible on her was the bright grin that emerged from beneath the shadows of the hood, along with the purple rectangular tattoo under her lips.

"Kasumi-chan!" Naruto cried out as he lunged forward and swept the smaller woman up in a great bear hug, causing her to laugh out loud as she was twirled around.

"Nice to see you too Kurama-kun or should I call you by your real name?"

"Call me by my In-Game-Name when around other players, but feel free to address me however you wish when we're alone." He answered with a smile, finally letting her down.

Smoothing out her cloak, she smirked mischievously.

"You just logged in?"

"Just got home, the queue for the game was killer near my area! I feel like I stood there for years!" Naruto complained as he rolled his eyes. "So I'm guessing that you've already been running around for a few hours to set up your Intelligence Network again huh?"

"Oh you know me so well Kurama-kun, I've already found a few of my old contacts so the basis for the network is already settling into place." Kasumi said, her voice dropping into a whisper after his mentioning his name. "Tons of other Beta-testers have already started hours ago as well, you should get a move on if you want to catch up to them."

"Thanks for the heads up as always, guess I'll be seeing you around then?"

"You won't be able to 'see' me if I didn't want you to whiskers, but if anything important crops up then I guess I could spare the time to pay you a visit or two." Kasumi said as she backed up into the shadows of a nearby building, suddenly blending in and disappearing from sight.

"I really hate it when she does that."

Deciding that he had wasted enough time, Naruto made his way out of town and into the open grass fields that surrounded the Town of Beginnings. Scanning the fields, he noted that there were already plenty of players out hunting the Frenzy Boars that roamed the area. Despite being a low-level mob, they made good practice and still granted a significant amount of experience for new players. Seeing one of the Frenzy Boars slowly moving closer to his position, he decided to brush up on his skills.

Sliding his feet apart into the stance required for his skill to activate, he placed his palm against the handle of his katana that was sheathed at his side. Waiting patiently as the Frenzy Boar wandered closer, his eyes narrowed as the katana started glowing red as he activated his sword skill.

Flash Draw!

The katana left the sheathe in the blink of an eye and struck a deep horizontal gash across the hide of the unsuspecting boar, fatally injuring it and reducing the health bar to zero. The Frenzy Boar burst into fragments of data that was absorbed by his avatar body, a smile stretched across his face as he watched his experience bar fill by a significant amount.

'Looks like there hasn't been any major changes to the basic combat system, time to take things up a notch. Can't let those other Beta-Testers show me up.'

Slowly moving away from the fields as he steadily gained levels from methodically killing higher-level mobs as well as completing all the available side quests that he had discovered during the Beta phase. Naruto wiped the sweat from his brow as he finally dispatched the last Wolf Pack from the area with a wide slash of his katana. Looking at the position of the sun in the sky, he presumed that at least five hours had passed since he started grinding.

'Guess it is almost time for dinner, I should log out for now.' Swiping his hand through the air to bring up the menu, he scrolled through the list of options before a frown made itself known upon his face. 'That's strange, the log-out function is missing from the options list…'

Giving his menu another once over, he determined that the log-out button was indeed missing from the options listed. Spotting someone in the distance, he jogged over and waved his arm back and forth in hopes of the person noticing. Fortunately the person was looking over in his direction and started a slow jog over, thus allowing them to meet in the middle.

"Hi, sorry to bother you! I'm Kurama." Naruto introduced himself as he held out a hand in greeting, which was grasped tightly by the larger male.

"Nice to meet you Kurama, you can call me Agil." The person had a large avatar, easily taller than his own avatar by an entire head. He had tanned skin along with a bandana tied around his short black hair, his attire consisted of a simple loose-fitting green shirt and beige pants. "What can I help you with?"

"Well I seem to have some kind of glitch with my game menu, I can't find the log-out function listed amongst the options in the menu." Naruto demonstrated as he opened up his menu and scrolled through it multiple times.

"That's strange… I can't find mine either." Agil said after checking his own menu, his baritone voice laced with worry. "Could this be a glitch in the system? It is the first game of its kind, so a few glitches on the opening day should be expected."

"Something this major? It doesn't look good for the future of this game if there is such a major fault on the launch day… I know it isn't my place to ask but, are you currently staying with anybody else? Seeing as I'm living with my family, they could assist in helping me switch off the Nerve-Gear."

"I'm living with my wife but unfortunately she is out of town for the next few days, she is visiting her folks in the countryside."

"Don't worry, with this major a fault. Someone at the company is bound to notice it soon, or we could just contact a Game Master and inform them directly." Naruto said as he tapped the GM option, only for nothing to happen.

"Maybe it takes a while for the Game Master to respond?"

Before any other words could be exchanged between the two, blue light started to envelope both their forms.

'Instantaneous Teleportation!' Was the only thought that passed through the blonde's mind before his body was transported, the same thing happening to the tall male beside him.

Town of Beginnings

Blinking his eyes in confusion, Naruto realised that he had somehow been transported back to the Town of Beginnings despite not having used a Teleport Crystal and rationalised that it was the doing of the Game Master. They had probably realised the fault and had gathered all the players to inform them about the glitch, hopefully something that would be fixed soon as he did not want to worry his family unnecessarily.

Looking around, he saw that the entirety of 10,000 players that made up Sword Art Online launch release had all been gathered into the Central Plaza of the town. Hearing shouts of commotion, he saw that several players have tried and unsuccessfully tried to leave the plaza. Testing it out for himself, Naruto theorized it was a travel restriction put in place by the Game Master to prevent players from leaving the area before he could explain the circumstances.

"Hey Kurama! Do you know what happened?" Agil called out as he shouldered his way through the crowd of players, finally coming to a standstill next to the redhead. "One moment we were in the fields and the next thing I know, everyone was back in the town area."

"It's likely that the Game Master used his powers over the game to transport everyone back here to inform us about the glitch regarding the missing log-out function."

Before more could be said, a loud blaring alarm sounded throughout the area. After several seconds, the sound was followed by a singular hexagonal box appearing in the sky with the word Warning! written inside it. Again several more seconds passed before multiple more hexagonal boxes appeared, some with the word Warning! and others with System Announcement flashing inside them. These boxes interlocked in an increasing pattern that stretched out across the entire plaza and formed a dome over the area.

As the players started getting rowdier from the lack of information, several screams echoed throughout the area prompting people to look skyward where others were pointing. A blood-like substance started leaking through the cracks between the hexagons, the viscous liquid collating in mid-air into an ever-shifting sphere-like shape. The sphere started shifting shape once enough mass had been acquired, a large cloaked figure with a hood formed in the air above them.

"Geez, what an overly dramatic entrance…" Naruto muttered to under his breath, though Agil managed to catch it and chuckled slightly at the remark since it was truthful in a sense.

"**Welcome players to the world that I have created. This is Sword Art Online and I am its creator, Kayaba Akihiko. Now as many of you have no doubt discovered, the log-out option for the game menu is missing. I would like to inform you that this is not a glitch, instead it is a key feature in Sword Art Online that I created."**

"What do you mean a key feature!?"

"Are you crazy?!"

"I need to get to dinner!"

These were just a few of the thousands of enraged cries that came from the gathered players, certainly understandable given the fact that someone had just told them that they could not exit the game. The blond-haired teen was not among those people, instead he felt a nagging feeling of despair building up somewhere inside his body.

'I have a bad feeling about this…'

"**As of this moment, I am the only person that can control this game and by default your lives as well. You cannot log out from the game, neither can anyone on the outside assist you in the removal of the Nerve-Gear. If anyone were to attempt the removal of the Nerve-Gear during game-play, it will result in the transmitters inside the helmet piece releasing strong electromagnetic microwaves that will destroy your brain."**

Without waiting for the news to even sink in, the cloaked spectre known as Kayaba Akihiko continued his grim explanation.

"**Any tampering with the Nerve-Gear will also result in the same thing happening, to be more specific… Dislocation from an outside source of electricity for ten minutes, being cut off from the system for more than two hours, or any attempt to unlock, dismantle or destroy the Nerve-Gear. If any of these conditions are met, the brain destruction sequence will begin."**

Ignoring the cries of outrage and fear around him, Naruto closed his eyes as he recollected the instructions and specifications of the Nerve-Gear manual he had read through.

"He isn't bluffing." He spoke up, catching the attention of Agil and several other players around him. "The battery within the helmet piece takes up a third of the total weight, theoretically with a battery that size… what he says is completely possible."

This only served to increase the panic and fear levels of the people that heard his statement, even Agil had a clear look of worry etched onto the face of his avatar. Above the noise generated from the crowd of players, the avatar of Kayaba Akihiko spoke in a louder tone.

"**These conditions have already been made known through the media to the government and public masses. On that note, several cases have occurred where relatives and friends have ignored the warnings provided and tried to forcefully remove the Nerve-Gear. The result… regretfully 213 people have already exited the game, and hence the real world, forever…"**

"213 people…" Agil stated in shock as a hand flew over his mouth, trying to stomach the fact that he could have been one of those people.

"**Players, there is no need to worry about the bodies you have left on the other side. As of this moment, all television, radio and internet media are reporting this situation. Within two hours, your bodies will all be transported to nearby hospitals along with your Nerve-Gear and be given the best treatment possible. So relax… for I will now offer you the only way out of this game." **The cloaked figure raised a gloved hand and conjured up a holographic structure of Aincrad, depicting all hundred levels from bottom to top. **"The objective is simple, all you have to do is ascend all the way to the top floor and defeat the final boss. Finishing the game will release all the trapped participants, so I suggest you give it a hundred percent of your effort."**

"Crazy bastard!"

"I have a wife and kids to get home to!"

"You call this a game!?"

"**Though I do urge you to be careful as there is another thing that I should mention, Sword Art Online is not just a game anymore. From now onwards, there will be no form of revival in this game. When your health bar reaches zero, your avatars will vanish… and at that instant, so too will your brain be destroyed by the Nerve-Gear. This game is now your reality, the only way to escape is to defeat the final boss at the hundredth floor of Aincrad castle."**

"Bastard!" Naruto growled aloud as he slammed his fist into the wall beside him. 'Kaa-chan and Kotori-chan must be worried sick about me, they must have heard the news broadcast since I'm still alive.'

"**Please do check your inventory as I have left each of you with a gift, something that will help you along the way to finishing the game." **The voice was just as monotonous as usual but the blond felt as if he detected a trace of amusement inside it.

Pulling up his inventory, he noticed the new object placed within it.

"A mirror?"

At that moment, numerous blue flashes of light enveloped all of the players in the plaza. As soon as the light died down, Naruto blinked several times as he noticed a drastic change in the sight before him. A majority of the female players have suddenly changed into middle-aged or older males dressed up in female player clothing, it was truly a disgusting sight to behold.

"Kurama?" A familiar voice called, he turned around to see a tall bald African man standing in place beside him.

"Agil? What happened to you?"

"I could say the same to you, you have blond hair now!"

Acting in surprise, he quickly yanked a portion of his fringe down and realised that he had his normal hair colour back. Bringing the mirror up to his face, he saw that he was back in his real world body. Which meant that everyone other player had the same thing happen to them, though the purpose of reverting everyone back to their original form was lost to him.

"There are high-density signal scanners in the Nerve-Gear that cover the entire head to read our brain signals, so he probably used those to get a reading on our facial features as well. Plus during the initial setup had us touch various parts of our body structure, probably used that data to recreate a virtual avatar in our likeliness." Naruto reasoned, with Agil nodding as he remembered all doing all those things.

"**You will all be probably wondering why would the creator of the Nerve-Gear and Sword Art Online be doing something like this. What could he hope to accomplish? Is this some kind of terrorist act and he is taking us as hostages? To tell the truth, there is no ulterior motive behind this. This situation is indeed my end goal, to sit back and observe the world that I have created. And now that everything has been realised, so ends the tutorial of Sword Art Online… Players, fight bravely."**

Complete and utter silence greeted the end of the speech, the spectre and dome vanishing together was the trigger point as suddenly thousands of players burst into either tears or outrage. In the midst of the chaos, Naruto slid away from the tall African male as he moved towards a familiar cloaked figure hugging the shadows of a nearby alleyway. Sliding into the alley, he was surprised as the petite figure pulled him into a hug but quickly recovered and returned the embrace.

"It's okay Kasumi-chan…" He whispered softly, reaching over and pulling back the hood that hid her face.

Goto Kasumi stood a head shorter than him, with raven hair pulled into a tight bun behind her head and two bangs framing the side of her face. She had almond-shaped eyes and a cute button nose along with a pair of soft lips and her purple rectangular tattoo decorating the underside of said lips and ran down along her chin. She was also the daughter of the man who ran Goto Industries, the lead company of Japan's telecommunications market.

"Naruto, this is some serious shit we have gotten ourselves into this time huh?" Kasumi let out a small laugh despite the situation, poking fun at the times that the two of them got into trouble for pranking various faculty members at their school.

"Tell me about it, probably worse than the time we laced our Discipline Master's food with laxative and glued all the toilet doors in the school shut except for the female faculty members' toilet." Naruto snickered as he remembered how Danzo had gotten beaten up by all the female staff members before finally soiling his pants.

"He knows we did it but could never find any hard evidence, I think he still gives me the stink eye whenever I pass him in the corridors."

Naruto shook his head slightly to clear away the memories as his voice took on a serious note, "Kasumi… I know I'm asking a lot of you but I need you to re-establish your spy network within this game. The information you acquire could be of tremendous help into clearing the game, but don't take any unnecessary risks if you can help it."

"Got it whiskers… though I can't really call you that since your real face doesn't actually have those whisker-like marks… guess I'll gave to spend some time into giving you a new nickname!" Kasumi giggled at the deadpan look on her friend's face before giving an acknowledging nod and sinking into the shadows to go about fulfilling her new objective.

Clenching his fist at the situation at hand, he looked around to see that the initial panic had subsided and a majority of the players were heading out of town towards the fields.

'Logical choice, seeing as how the game is literally now your life. Getting more experience and gold is key for survival and finishing the game, though this means that the nearby hunting grounds will most likely be hunted clean within the hour or so… guess I'll have to quickly head over to the next town.' Naruto decided as he spun about on the spot and made to walk off in a certain direction before a hand clamped down over his shoulder.

Turning around to see who the offending appendage belonged to, he saw that the hand was attached to a rather slender, yet toned, arm which was connected to a grinning red-haired girl. The girl appeared to be in her mid-teens, probably around the same age as him, and had a rather beautiful face with vulpine-like eyes that made her look like a fox when she was grinning.

"Sorry to bother you but I couldn't help but notice that you look like you know what you are doing, which means that you were a Beta-Tester for this fucked up game."

Raising an eyebrow at the rather foul language that emerged from her mouth, he made no effort to interrupt as he gestured for the new arrival to continue with her train of thought.

"So I was wondering if I could tag along and possibly get some pointers, since this is the first time I am playing a VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) as it was recommended to me by a friend." The redhead ended off, grin slipping off as a sombre look appeared on her face.

"And what about this friend of yours?"

"Turns out her bad luck turned out to be a blessing in disguise, her alarm clock battery died during the night and failed to wake her up in time to queue for the game. So fortunately she is still out and about in the real world, though she is probably mentally beating herself up over my situation…"

Sighing slightly, Naruto mentally considered the pros and cons of having someone else tagging along with him. While it would slow him down a little as she claimed to have no experience with this kind of games before, the pros far outweighed the cons in the fact that a two-man party would be a lot more efficient later on than a solo player.

"I guess it couldn't hurt…"

"Cool, but it was not like you had a choice either way. Even if you declined I still would have just followed you around until you accepted but thanks anyway!" She smirked at the annoyed look that appeared on the face of her new companion, accepting the friend request while scrutinising the name displayed. "Kurama?"

"That's the name of my avatar, but my real name is Naruto." He explained as he in turn checked the display name of the person he had sent the friend request to. "Looking forward to working together Kyuubi."

"Maelstrom huh? Though I like Kurama a lot better, Naruto is a pretty cool name too I guess. Kyuubi is my IGN as well… however I don't think I will entrust you with my real name just yet. Maybe once I trust you a little more." Kyuubi stated.

"That's acceptable, though I'm surprised that you got the meaning of my name correct on the first try. A ton of people just assume that my name means 'Fishcake' instead of 'Maelstrom' which was what my parents named me after." Naruto said with a small smile though it was quickly replaced with a depressed one when he noticed the mischievous look on her face. "I probably shouldn't have said that…"

"Whatever do you mean Fishcake-san? I hope that we can work well together in future Fishcake-san! Let's do our best Fishcake-san!" The redhead repeated consecutively with an innocent smile on her face.

'Kami help me, this is going to be a long trip…' Naruto mentally groaned as he trudged his way out of town but he could not help a small smile that made its way onto his face.

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**Well so ends the first chapter of my version of a Naruto and Sword Art Online crossover! As you can see, I have chosen to deviate from the norm of having Naruto encounter Kirito and instead have him meet up with a few other characters instead. Not to say that our favourite blond won't meet up with our favourite black-haired swordsman in the next few chapters, but you will just have to wait and see!**

**Uzumaki Kotori is indeed Kotori from the series Date a Live, since I was thinking about which red-haired anime girl should I make into Naruto's sister and then the thought hit me! Why not Kotori since she already is a little sister! So behold my idea given form, hohoho! She won't be appearing until the entire Aincrad Arc of the story is over!**

**Yes, Kasumi is indeed Kasumi Goto from the Mass Effect universe! I thought that she might fit in well here, sort of like what Argo is to Kirito except that Kasumi reports directly to Naruto only. She will have a major role in this story, unlike how the writers of SAO seemingly forgotten about Argo after the first few chapters.**

**As always no fanfiction of mine is complete without Female Kyuubi! Her real name will remain a mystery until she believes that our blond-haired protagonist is trustworthy enough to learn of her name, just like in canon! Don't worry as she will be the only Narutoverse character that I will bring in, no others will appear!**

**Just drop a review letting me know what you think of the first chapter, future updates are bound to be more action packed and you will get to see what special skillset that Kayaba Akihiko has gifted Naruto with! Stay tuned!**


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